Gordhan ‘looks beyond election’

Johannesburg - Pravin Gordhan would not answer questions yesterday on whether he was tabling his last Budget, or would remain finance minister after the May election.

“All of us serve at the pleasure of the president. Wait for the elections and the occasion when the president formally tells you what his cabinet is going to look like. I invite you to be disciplined,” he told a media briefing ahead of his 2014 Budget speech. “No questions on that issue need to be accommodated.”

Gordhan pointed out that he was not tabling a “four-month budget” but a medium-term expenditure framework for three fiscal years, suggesting that there would be fiscal stability regardless of the change of administration in May.

“There will be continuity in policy. This Budget is for the next three years,” he said. “This Budget is for the next administration to pick up, start running and then adjust it as it might see fit.”

Gordhan hinted in a recent newspaper interview that he might end his tenure as finance chief after the polls, saying if he did so the reasons would be partly political, partly personal. - Sapa